In the manufacturing industry, one essential contribution to sustain high competitiveness is successful regular implementation of advanced manufacturing technology. Barriers of different sorts could interfere with this implementation. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there are barriers to implementation of laser welding technology and how they affect the implementation process. Eleven small manufacturing companies, mainly in northern Sweden and Finland, are interviewed regarding their experiences with implementation of laser welding technology. What is clear is that this is a more complex question than just lack of money. The study shows other underlying barriers to have more influence on the lack of implementation. Many of the barriers are connected with organization and management. Identifying these barriers and when they occur in the implementation process may improve implementation efficiency.

För att uppnå det övergripande målet att skapa en internationellt konkurrenskraftig regional tillverkningsindustri har projektet följande mål: • Genomföra ett antal högkvalitativa seminarier där experter möter små eller medelstora svenska och finska företag. Seminarierna ska resultera i en ”Agenda för industriell framtid” • Implementera ett antal demonstranter (svetsning) där man kan utveckla och träna operatörer, utveckla nya organisationsformer, testa olika styrsystem, samordna demonstratorer i nätverk och ett antal andra aktiviteter som utvecklats inom ”Agenda för industriell framtid” • Genomföra 20 handlingsprogram (ett för varje företag) där man försöker realisera agendan i anslutning till den etablerade demonstratorn. Målsättningen är att förbättra det ekonomiska omsättningen med 15 % samtidigt som man förbättrar miljön med 15 %. • Arrangera ett internationellt slutseminarium Projektets vision är att regionens tillverkningsindustri kan ses som en av de mest avancerade SME-kulturerna i världen. Baserat på avancerad hög-teknologi lyckas man utveckla innovativa produkter i världsklass, samtidigt som man värnar om ekologisk hållbarhet. Metoder för jämställdhet, som bidrar till att bryta den sneda könsfördelningen inom industrin, har utvecklats. Företagen är konkurrenskraftiga och genererar såväl höga intäkter som en stabilt växande arbetsmarknad.

The industrial development in northern part of Scandinavia has for the last years steadily beengrowing, primarily driven by strong expansion in mining, hydro power and wind powerindustries, which influences the growth and also demand on the mechanical industry in thearea. In order to further develop the competitiveness of manufacturing companies and thepromotion of laser technology in the north of Sweden and Finland, three new laser projectswere approved. These projects will be presented in this paper.. One project at LuleåUniversity of Technology (LTU) will support industry to develop and implement lasers inmanufacturing, combined with further development of an interesting laser process useful forthe regional industry. One project is a cooperation project between LTU and University ofOulu that will focus on developing optimal laser welds in high strength steels using highpower fibre- and disc lasers and evaluation of fatigue properties of the welds. The thirdproject deals with fatigue properties of laser clad surfaces and is a cooperation projectbetween LTU and Centria Research unit of Central Osterbothnia of Applies Sciences,involving also Tampere University of Technology.

Today merely a few monitoring systems for in-process detection of laser welding defects are commercially available. Despite a trend towards cameras, industrially more robust is still a photodiode, measuring in an optically filtered spectral window either the thermal emissions from the melt and vapour or the laser beam reflections. The monitoring rule for each application is identified empirically through correlations between the signal dynamics and welding defects, as the linking mechanism is non-trivial and therefore hardly understood. Thus the method does not provide a systematic guideline to detect a certain welding defect.The here presented approach studies the context between the photodiode signal, the welding defects and the vapour, melt pool, keyhole and temperature dynamics. Simultaneous laser-illuminated high speed imaging is compared to photodiode monitoring at three spectral windows in order to identify through simultaneous timing any linking dynamics in a qualitative manner. Supportive methods are emission modelling and thermal imaging. Several cases of joints, materials and defects were studied to develop an illustrated theoretical description of the defect-signal correlations.

On-line process monitoring of laser welding defects by detecting characteristic changes of the process emissions via photodiodes has high potential but, due to the complex process, lack of directly interpretable and thus controllable correlations. Deep analysis of the process by high speed imaging in combination with modelling enables one to discuss the correlations between the signal and the process, as was demonstrated for quasi-steady state conditions and for transient phenomena. Despite improved knowledge through the study, several uncertainties like the emissivity, the keyhole radiation characteristics and the temperature field need to be identified more accurately for a complete theoretical description of the signal causes.

Today merely a few monitoring systems for inprocess detection of laser welding defects are commercially available. Despite a trend towards cameras, the industrially most powerful concept is still a photodiode with optical filter, measuring thermal emissions from the melt surface and from the plasma or laser beam reflections. The monitoring rule for each application is identified empirically through temporal correlations between dynamic signal changes and obtained welding defects. The mechanisms behind are widely not understood. Thus the method does not provide a systematic estimation of success for identifying a certain welding defect. The here presented research approach studies the context between welding defects, the physical mechanisms behind, particularly the dynamics of melt pool, plasma and temperature field, and the photodiode signal. Numerical simulation results of the thermal emissions from the weld pool and keyhole dynamics and their non-linear conversion into a voltage signal are presented. An essential outcome is the sensitivity of the sensor signal to certain sub-mechanisms of the motion for judging under which conditions they can be monitored. Various results are discussed for simplified hypothetic cases as well as for observed weld pool dynamics of practical relevance.

The extensive use of high power laser for materials processing in industry has brought a new era in manufacturing technology. High speed processing with low heat input and high precision offers up-to-date manufacturing. New processes like laser hybrid welding are developed and introduced in industry. But the potential of laser technology is not by far fully utilised due to lack of knowledge of laser processes in the industrial environment.The national Swedish programme, "proDesign - Expert competence in industrial product development and materials processing", offers new opportunities of providing education for industrial managers, designers and manufacturing people. Within the scope of proDesign, Luleå University of Technology has developed several new courses in laser material processing for people in industry. These courses have now uccessfully been introduced to the Swedish market and this paper presents experiences from this work.